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This is an absolutely awesome naturally aspirated S54 build that caught the attention of BimmerBoost. Why? Namely because it is so well documented and also because the impressive results. Many so called experts used to state the S54 motor in the E46 M3 was maxed out from the factory. Time has shown that to be incorrect but as time has gone on owners have continued to coax more and more power out of the motor. With 288/280 Schrick cams, some cylinder head work, headers, and a great tune from Evolve this E46 M3 hit an incredible 353 naturally aspirated horsepower at the wheels.

The pictures and words below are all from a forum poster that goes by the name of nickpiper12. BimmerBoost felt this build deserved praise and attention. Enjoy:

I would like to start this thread off by thanking the people who have helped me throughout this month long project. Samo (samo6556), Alex (flipm3), Chris (abad46), Alex L (Alex Lipowich), Bogus (CM-2), and my buddy Quinn from Patrick BMW with the parts hookup as always! Whether it was wrenching late, lending tools/parts, or…, you guys really helped me out throughout all this. Couldn't have done it without ya. I'm glad it's finally done though.

I've been posting bits and pieces of my build in my journal. With all things I do with this car, I seem to go "all out" at one time. It's just what makes sense to me even though it's more down time and of course more cost all at once.

Upon opening, all was good. No broken exhaust tabs or anything out of the ordinary. Just started tearing it down.

Of course we had to take a little break!

Back to work!

Beisan Oil Pump Disk Install

Chain Guide New Vs. Old

Beisan Seals on!

Now here is where I decided to go full retard

Airbox out for a cam install?

Everything layed out, trying to be organized

abad46 and flipm3 doing some work of their own while I remove the headers

Here they are!

Getting closer!

There we go! Head is out!

Spare head I bought for $100. Perfect for what I'm looking to do on it

SSV1's with 2.5" V-Bands and FMU Custom 3" Midpipe Sold!

Then I bought the same exact headers 24 hours later

ID of primaries

Tornado hit my garage

3.5" Single Pipe that I will using as part of my new setup along with the SSV1 S-Pipe

Some A6's Zimamotorsport dropped off

My plan with the head was to have a valve job done with new seals, resurface/deck, and then machine the exhaust ports using specs abad46 found from World Challenge.

According to World Challenge, the exhaust runners in head may be machined into 41.5mm circle centered on OEM exhaust port. Exhaust runner divider may be machined a max of 25.4mm from head face, and shall be a min of 2.5mm thick. More info can be found here

As much as we were interested in doing this, it turned into more than we thought. We tested it on the spare head I bought which was perfect.

Back from the machine shop.

As you can see, with these specs, it would require a full P&P, something I didn't really have the funds to do so. Sure I could have left it as is, but who knows what effect the non-rounded edges would have. It's a good thing we tested on the spare head. Sort of bummed, but can't do everything sometimes

So I told the machine shop to assemble my head without doing any of that work.

Real head back in my possession! Looks awesome

At least they are clean now!

New head gasket, head bolts, header gaskets, pre-cat O2's, and VANOS bolts

Cleaning up the block a bit.

Headgasket on with copper gasket spray to fill any imperfections!

Head back on! Also new injectors and fuel rails in!

Cleaned up the TB's!

Prepping the headers for install!

Headers in!

Intake manifold, and Schrick 288/280's in!

Another shot of these beauties

New chain guide, sprockets, chain, hubs, and VANOS unit on!

Valve adjusment time! Per Schrick, .25mm clearances should be used for both intake and exhaust cams.

Valve cover back on! New plugs, left the coils for now. Will be replacing though!

Due to not having an exhaust that fits, and not wanting to start the car with open headers so we could hear the motor, this was our only option….

A little AutoLogic action to make sure everything is well

Swapped out the bad coil and no SES's!

Since the plan was to track the following day, we needed to mock up an exhaust that would be acceptable.

OE Muffler and SS Res X-Pipe installed. Samo and Alex both coming in clutch with supplying necessary hardware from their dealerships

And then we cut the flanges off an OE Section 1 at 1 A.M. outside my house with a sawzaw. Neighbors loved that! And made this… contraption using Autozone 2.5" band clamps

A little visit to Mexico Muffler the next morning...

They were scared to put the car on the lift, so I basically did everything

And here we are. Stepped up the OE Section 1 as much as they could. $30 not bad! Still leaks but ehh, only temporary. It gets the job done.

Garage finally cleaned up swapping to PFC's and adjusting dampening!

[center][/cener]

Before Dyno. Mods in Video.

After Dyno (to be continued...) Mods in Video

Okay so after around 12 hours of tuning and over 60 pulls on the dyno, here is our progress so far.

First off I would like to thank Sal from Evolve and how thankful we all are to be working with someone like him. With his driving compassion, patience, and perseverance, myself and others just can not thank him enough. Staying up until 3 A.M UK time twice to dyno tune, with all of our crazy schedules to get this nailed down! Okay on to what we have done so far.

All graphs in SAE, and 8200 RPM redline. Tune was calibrated with the valve closed to get the best AFR reading possible, also to not blow our eardrums... Also I am retaining the MAF, not running AlphaN, no CSL CF airbox, no bored TB's, and no headwork. Even though all of those will come in time

As you can see here, I am making some very good power. Both area under the curve, and peak numbers. Low end well, is hard to compare. With big cams, people assume you will lose low end power. Its hard to discern considering I switched my exhaust setup drastically, but the low clearly exists! The mid range, well you can see there is slight loss, but only 5-7whp/wtq, which is barely noticeable on the street. WOT going through the gears, every upshift drops down to 6500 RPM, so the dip is outside of the upshift range WOT. Top end, well NUTS!

Drivability, just awesome on the street. Idle is perfect, part throttle mapping is spot on, partial to full throttle transition is smooth, and the delivery is just NUTS! We haven't even really worked much on these maps yet and it can only get better from here!

During the last dyno session, I hit the flash counter, so we had to postpone the rest of the tuning, which worked out actually. I am experiencing an odd fueling issue, which is heavily affecting the AFR making it rich, losing power, especially in the midrange, why there is a loss currently.

Ruling out the fuel pump, injectors, vacuum leaks, etc, I am left with the fuel pressure regulator. We have reason to believe that it is stuck open and just dumping too much fuel. So I will be replacing that, reseting the flash counter, and strapping down on the dyno hopefully this week if all works well. Due to this issue, Sal felt safe to be relatively conservative while tuning, especially with the ignition and VANOS maps. So there IS more left on the table, we just don't know exactly how much with my limiting intake components. Only time will tell!

We'll be finding out hopefully soon!These are Schrick 288/280 Standard Lift cams. They are the "middle grade" cams that can still retain the VANOS. There are several more aggressive specifications than this. These cams were chosen due to their ability to still retain low-end power/torque all the while being a top end screamer.

That's what I figured and it makes complete sense to me. Looks to be a great choice.